The role of Parliament in the crisis

I am uneasy that I cannot go to Parliament and raise there the issues and problems that concern my constituents. I appreciate this is the normal time for an Easter recess, but these are not normal times. My case load, email box and website are even more active than usual. There is heightened awareness of government given the large increase in powers and the direct effects it is having on all our lives. I of course take things up by email, phone and letter, as Ministers are working.

I am seeking reassurances today that Parliament will b e allowed back after the recess as planned. I understand we will need to continue adapting the work pattern to offer more protection to those involved, assuming the social segregation measures are still in place. The Speaker set out some changes which helped before the recess and more might be possible, to limit the number in the chamber at any time, but to ensure that public questions and arguments can still be put. Maybe there can be a temporary use of remote technology, so Parliament can have its version of the daily Number 10 press conferences with MPs asking the questions and making the points to the Ministers on duty.

This should be a time to demonstrate the importance of single member constituency representation at Westminster. Each of us receive many practical pieces of advice and difficult cases that reveal cracks or imperfections in the rules and government programmes. These need to be put to government Ministers by MPs who are used to speaking truth to power and who know the Ministers well and how they might respond.

I would like strengthened accountability during this recess. The Cabinet office does allow a daily call to put issues, but it would be good to have a recess written question facility to all departments and virtual Ministerial statements with questions from MPs when the government is making important announcements.

I am raising these issues with the Speaker.

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In January MPs passed Johnson’s agreement which puts a border down the Irish Sea and requires payments to the EU until the 2060s. Then you all celebrated it. Weird.

Meanwhile the Coronavirus crisis has stopped face to face talks – and, despite the outrage of elderly Brexit backers, trade deals are not negotiable by Skype. Not that the UK even know what it wants yet anyway.

The EU and its members have no time pressures and are rightly focussing on saving people’s lives instead of making them poorer.

Next to nobody in Westminster is working on Brexit either but they are still too scared to tell you they are going to delay the transition. They are obviously considering when to slip it out so you don’t notice. There are lots of good days to bury bad news at the moment

Meanwhile the Brexiteers have failed to recruit the 50,000 Brexit bureaucrats we need to deal with your customs red tape. 200m m+ extra forms a year – at least. Farmers are tens of thousands of seasonable labourers short so fruit is rotting in the fields. The £4bn we have spent on your Brexit so far could have been spent on the NHS – and we’re missing thousands of EU doctors and nurseries who let.

The EU citizens settlement scheme has been closed down, because of Coronavirus- a breech of the withdrawal agreement.

We have failed to replicate the regulators we need to be operational on 31 / 1 – including those dealing with aviation safety and chemicals. Industry has warned the government of the dangers but apparently Mark Francois knows better. Meanwhile the government has no idea what the internal border it agreed to will look like and how it will work – but it will add huge costs to business and massively harm Northern Ireland’s economy.

Oh – and we are now the only people in all of developed Europe who no longer have the right to live, work, study, love bureaucracy free in 31 other countries.

What a very bizarre post. Indeed trade negotiations can continue remotely just as commercial negotiations, board meetings and cabinet meetings can.

You may have noticed that all the borders in Europe have been closed contrary to the Schengen Agreement. That France and Germany have blocked the export of medical supplies to Italy, contrary to the rules of the single market. And that members of the eurozone are screaming at each other again over the unresolved issue of fiscal transfers and cross-guarantees on debt. I think there will be many of us who were Remain or floating voters who will think we are well out of it. Yannis Varoufakis, former Greek finance minister, who campaigned for Remain, has now reached the view that actually the U.K. is better off out. Mainly because of the impending disaster of the eurozone. Best to be well clear of it he thinks.

There will of course be no border in the Irish Sea, but naturally the U.K. govt will find processes so as to respect the requirements of the EU not to allow unauthorised goods there.

With all the other problems I very much doubt the EU will wish to add to all their other problems by starting a trade war with the U.K.

Imagine how frustrating it’s going to be for you when there’s a good comprehensive FTA between the U.K. and the EU and everyone turns round and asks what all the fuss was about!

The EU and its members have no time pressures and are rightly focussing on saving people’s lives instead of making them poorer.

Are they? You should ask the Italian, Spanish & Poles whose PM complained that Brussels ahdn’t given a cent in help.
Do you know how many millions German banks made from the Greek debt? As of 2019? According to figures obtained from Angela Merkel’s government by Germany’s Green Party in 2018, Germany received €2.9billion (£2.5bn) in interest payments on Greek bonds that were bought through a now-defunct bond-buying programme.

We are seeing nothing less than the political abuse by both government, State, NHS and opposition parties of the CV-19 event to ferment a collectivist mindset, a compliant mindset, an uncritical populace but more concerning is the general direction of State powers over our freedoms and the actions of those who impose such laws upon our person

I shall think as a critical individual would. I won’t be coerced like a sheeple and corralled by this PM, Labour or indeed any other large state political animal who’s relishing the flood of cash and powers about to come raining down upon their gleeful heads.

Many can see what the bigger game is here. We can see the leftist propaganda at work. We can see the NHS is being used as a Trojan horse to get inside the heads and hearts of a free-lunch loving populace to encourage State dependency.

There’s a price to pay for State dependency

Labour will be the main unwitting beneficiary of this appalling government’s response.

Do not forget Mayhab introduced the Snooper charter to local authorities and a host of other public sector bodies to ba able to view your computer traffic without any checks, balances or legal safeguard such as a warrant! Under the original guise to protect us from terrorism, but this is not the sole reason for snooping at your computer. The biggest Snoopers are local authorities!

Tories promised to cut number of MPs in parliament following a host of promises to reform parliament after the expense scandal, nothing of substance materialised. A policy decision was reached with the police to prosecute a a tiny amount when over 302 were over paid or fiddled their expenses. Ten years on and under the cover of corona virus it was decided to keep the same number and award themselves a whopping pay rise to £82,000 and £10,000 advance when everyone else left to suffer.

One reason to keep the huge number of MPs being the workload increased because there are no MEPs! This was not an issue in 2010!

No MP screaming about the failure of reform, the shinangans over the past three years where some colluded with a foreign power to undermine the govt etc. Reform of parliament still very much required. The cess pit and Lords remain and in the latter case increases in number!

Mark,
The govt are not saving lives, they have not found a solution to the virus and they have already changed strategy which were in contrast to each other and it is why the country is not prepared and has and will cause deaths.

Johnson photographed on stairs in no. 10 with Handcock and others not complying with their own distance rules now both have the virus!

Yesterday flights from hotspot countries still flying in, not quarantined or tested and went straight to public transport- reported in two national daily newspapers with photographs today. Lock down, for what purpose if this is allowed?

Yes people die each day and each year from illness and voluntary activities. Speeding and drink driving cause deaths each year with years of govt campaigns. Did the govt ban us all from driving?

The govt is clueless and rudderless. It changed course on flimsy reasons without the basics for the plan being in place. Perhaps we could have a three word strap line to make us feel better.

You are correct. The current situation is essentially a coup with a growing overthrow of democracy and freedom (the government structure) in the country. Centralised power, government patronage (which businesses are permitted to exist, which people will be funded?), a brutish police force, the dominance of society over the individual etc. I could even read Sir John’s admirable request to the Speaker as an opportunity that the U.K.’s new central authority will take to step further towards the Chinese ‘democracy’ of local meetings to feed the needs and thoughts up to the central power to manipulate. How has the U.K. central authority managed this change so quickly, with the usual techniques of fear, then authoritarianism to be followed by salvation. Fear was allowed to spread, aided by an all too willing/naïve media and (partially) state funded research rather than a rational presentation. This left many panicking, desperate for direction and an easy place for authoritarianism to step in. If more people begin to question this then we will see the next stage of a saviour central authority with friendly representatives. We will see astounding claims for lives saved by dictatorial rule, we will see the brutish police ease back and pretend to be one of the people again.

So, I agree with you Dominic. We can only enjoy our moments of being able to post comments whilst we still can. These days may be numbered.

And on the use of numbers of lives saved as justification for the Govt’s actions there are some difficulties. If the claimed numbers of lives saved is only in the tens of thousands (conveniently ignoring adjustments for comorbidities) then this will be insufficient against the lives lost and general welfare impact in a longer time frame due to the economic damage. Any transparent calculation would have to make this comparison. The lives saved calculation would be estimated deaths if NHS collapsed less actual deaths given current interventions. Looking at the number of deaths so far and estimates of infections per death of 1000 to 2000 (compatible with the experts’ public guesstimates of background prevalence of a few % at time of writing) it is hard to see an honest calculation demonstrating more than tens of thousands of lives saved. Of course the numbers could be worse, and the assumed background prevalence might not be as high as the guesstimates, but of course it could be higher. It seems little effort has been made to get to the point of sampling the population for which a thousand not a million antibody tests would be sufficient. I expect an attempt to associate more deaths with Covid19 giving a chance to elevate the estimate of lives saved, I expect delay on measuring or reporting the background cases, I expect a continued push on the save the NHS message alongside air-plucked numbers of lives saved, and then in a few months the (clearly untrue) claims of saving the economy – the role of saviour, after fear and central control will be complete.

DOMINIC
leftist propaganda at work. We can see the NHS is being used as a Trojan horse to get inside the heads and hearts of a free-lunch loving populace to encourage State dependency.

Agreed. With the amount of information rising slowly but inevitably to the surface due in no small part to the power of social media, even a few of our and international politicians are beginning to have concerns as to where the Trojan horse was constructed and its potential damage to the Western world.

What has been exposed by this pandemic is the abysmal quality of governance in this country, based on politicians, bloviating to assuage the masses, possibly as amateur clowns, instead of acting decisively especially when they observed a tsunami of disease approaching these shores from the East; the shocking state of unpreparedness whereby at every level there is not the ability to contain or fight this disease should not go unpunished and that does not mean the usual game of musical chairs but a complete clear out of the old parties and old ways.

We could have taken the Chinese or South Korean route but instead we selected the Italian route by default which will inflict far more economic damage and human misery.

People discuss the economic impact of this virus lasting a generation, it is becoming ever more clear that the social impact will be as great. Heaven forfend that the next PM is a Red as it will further entrench this deeply suspicious derogation of our civil liberties. The Police already place more importance on chasing hate crime than burglars. Will these, Stasi-lite, neighbourhood snitching websites be disbanded asap or will they linger? One positive might be the continued repurposing (to domestic needs not Chinese and Indian Space programmes) of the disgusting, profligate Foriegn Aid budget.

Missed in all this talk of NHS crisis is how overstretched we are as a result of mass immigration. Taking in the equivalent to a city the size of Liverpool every year since 1998 has undoubtedly put intolerable pressure on the creaking seams of the NHS. Of course this will never be raised publicly at a time like this but the logic is irrefutable.

We are seeing nothing less than the political abuse by both government, State, NHS and opposition parties of the CV-19 event to ferment a collectivist mindset, a compliant mindset, an uncritical populace but more concerning is the general direction of State powers over our freedoms and the actions of those who impose such laws upon our person

>
They think this is their big push for global control, but the bad news is this is the final act that ends politics worldwide, for 1000 years of peace. They will all be out of a job soon, oh dear. God wins in the end.

Since we are talking conspiracy , might it be the opposite to what your are stating and the private large companies getting a hold on state imposing their wills in a potential totalitarianism..We cannot see all which goes on but there is plenty of pseudo- type fiction out there which could relay more truth that fantasy .Authors have to get their ideas from somewhere and in this giant chessboard of moves and countermoves there are only so many possible manoeuvres.

Well actually lots of us criticise the NHS, and have done very seriously to both Labour and Conservative Governments, it’s just that both are too scared to take responsibility for the really thorough rethink that’s required.

(The Lansley ‘reforms’ were just ludicrously complex reshuffling of deckchairs).

I have just heard a senior policeman on the radio, suggesting that Police Forces need more time to decide exactly how to enforce government advice. Once we have the Police deciding that their role is not to enforce the law, but to enforce ministerial views and advice, it is the slippery slope. When did Police training go down this track and why?

When you start chasing people in open spaces with drones and creating a Stasi type culture, people, decent free thinking people, are going to act badly. And those decent free thinking people tends to vote Conservative and will not like what is happening.

The police allowed and watched eco lunatics to commit criminal damage by digging up turf, blocking roads etc. Now shouting, fining and prosecuting people for getting fresh air! Where does the govt think people in flats can go? How do they get out without breaking rules of distance by stairs or lifts? Before we talk about potential Grenfall issues?

FFS, hate crime and all the lefty socialist monitoring brought in by the Tory party. The police are inspected on their compliance with diversity, hate crime, trans gender garbage etc.

We read today Germany starts 100,000 antibody testing to get people back to work, our useless govt has not even approved a test yet! We read there is capacity to analyse testing but organisation is the issue in the UK!

– ‘ FFS, hate crime and all the lefty socialist monitoring brought in by the Tory party. The police are inspected on their compliance with diversity, hate crime, trans gender garbage etc.’ –

Absolutely, Hope, and I wonder if there is actually any hope for ever getting a real Conservative Government in the future! It seems to me that the Socialists have been ruling for a very long time now.

Again I ask, Why can’t extensive use be made of video conferencing to do normal work by government and parliament? There are ways to make it fully effective as a means of discussion, and normal parliamentary business could be conducted. There are even ways to take a count.
If Parliament is to evolve, then accountability needs to be transparent – With that in mind, and video conferencing used, there is no reason not to have these discussions etc seen by the public – who might also be able to give a response as to how much they agreed with decisions made.
Out of adversity comes innovation – we can but hope.

No doubt that video conferencing can be simply established. Doubtless that all MPs input/output is already filtered/directed via a substantial building near Cheltenham. Switching may need adjustment to limit the needless detail to pass to our ‘friendly’ neighbours, in advance. Can , no, should also pass through the existing Parliamentary public channels of Hansard &TV

Indeed the lack of a sunset clause was an outrage. Why on earth did MPs agree to this legislation without one?

The police have gone from doing almost nothing about most crimes like shoplifting, burglary, street crime, bank frauds and the likes to shaming people harmlessly walking their dog with drones and vandalising the Blue Lagoon with black die.

It shows that you were wrong in your criticism of the Conservative Party for expelling some members.
They stood for election and not one got elected.
It shows just what the voters thought of their conduct.
Had they agreed with their behaviour and their views they would have voted fir them.

Well, what did you expect in creating a hysteria in which you have played a small part!? They have a tendency to abuse powers if not kept in check. They will enjoy nothing more than harassing people and fining them, rather than tackling drug dealing OCGs!

This could be a forced start on the modernisation of Parliament, a long overdue event. Currently it is too great a costume drama and too little a modern business enterprise. A bit of theater is effectve on occasion, but what we have is largely a soap opera.

The theatrical aspects of the Church and the Law Courts are there to intimidate. As the people become better educated and informed the intimidation aspect of the two diminishes.

The Monarchy is pure theatre, relatively harmless theatre but on balance a great earner for UK LTD. Who would turn out or come from abroad to witness a president such as Blair strutting his stuff. They all have one of those at home.

Stuffed with largely left wing, big government, pro EU lawyers, PPE and liberal art graduates whose main aim seems to be to overtax, over regulate, order people about and generally inconvenience them. Then to piss most of the money down the drain on bloated & largely inept government, HS2, renewables and other complete lunacies.

My approach was to get the NHS ready and geared up. I called for the lock down (that they belatedly did) but only due to the abject failure of the NHS to organise sufficient ventilators and other medical capacity.

The 2 plus months they have had was plenty time to do all this. The pandemic planning clearly should have had provision to make or assemble such gear quickly.

All MPs to work from home in their constituency. The speaker to become a TV director taking questions on a split screen. Instead of jumping up and down like prairie dogs, MP’s push a button to submit questions. Speeches on Parliamentary Channel. Same with elected Advisors 200 max after Lords banished. Sell the Palace as an entertainment centre and museum.

So digging around the legislation I have found the following. Before reading it this is not listed as a “national minimum standard” so I’m not sure if it was ever enforceable or not.

Operating Framework for Managing the Response
to Pandemic Influenza

The Health and Social Care Act (2012) places a statutory duty on each Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) to “take appropriate steps for securing that it is properly prepared for dealing with a relevant emergency”. Similar duties are imposed on each NHS provider as a term of their contracts with the CCGs to provide NHS services.

In addition, the Civil Contingencies Act (CCA) 2004 places a statutory duty on emergency frontline responders to prepare, respond and recover from significant incidents and emergencies.

The NHS England Emergency Preparedness Resilience and Response (EPRR) Framework (2015) requires each NHS funded organisation to have a nominated Accountable Emergency Officer (AEO) responsible for ‘ensuring that the organisation is properly prepared and resourced for dealing with an incident’.

In terms of stockpiles. It’s says the bulk of the stock pile is PPE. We now know that this stock pile was (1) never defined (2) was inadequate. Does the UK really have enough antivirals for 50% of the population.

This crisis will no doubt lead to a public enquiry and some of the questions need to be (1) Were the pandemic standards minimum standards (2) Were the stockpiling standards sufficient (3) Did the health authorities follow and standards.

10.1. Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)
The bulk of the stockpile consists of PPE designed to protect healthcare workers from contracting pandemic influenza while caring for patients. This includes surgical facemasks, FFP3 respirators, gloves and aprons, plus hygiene consumables.

10.2. Antivirals
Prompt access to antivirals for symptomatic individuals is a key component of the UK’s ‘defence in depth’ response to pandemic influenza. The UK maintains a stockpile of antivirals sufficient to treat 50% of the population.

Who are the people who did the pandemic planning in the NHS, why on earth was it so totally inept. Why was no action taken given the results or the experiment:-

Ministers were warned that the NHS could not cope with a pandemic three years ago but the ‘terrifying’ results were kept secret. They know that Britain would be quickly overwhelmed by a severe outbreak.

So which Ministers were these? Hunt/Rudd/May/Hammond I assume? Perhaps they can justify their inaction and the censorship.

Can we be sure our defence planning is not equally appalling. I suspect it is given the aircraft carrier fiasco and other gross incompetence.

Rather more people spent years ensuring we didn’t get a Brexit we wanted and voted for. Yes, we voted for it in case you forget. Even now it is debatable whether we will get an acceptab;e version of Brexit.

Once you are on dialysis treatment, you can’t come off unless you get a kidney transplant. I cannot imagine any health system that could cope with a vast amount of patients requiring such treatment, and I really don’t think that panic-inducing statements such as this and others on this site are particularly, or indeed at all helpful at this time.

I share your concerns. Give them an inch and they (government, NHS, police) will take a yard. Lord Sumption warned yesterday, on WatO, about excessive police behaviour and the danger of turning what he described as “citizen* police into an arm of a police state.

The real power, the power that will not listen to the truth, the power that does not permit itself to be challenged, lies with the media and most of all the BBC. Generally, if our government makes a mistake, it is because it has listened to the incessant irresponsible drone from the media.

One is the lack of the gym. My dear old body needs exercise of a fairly specific kind and I simply cannot get it at home. Already there are signs of wear and tear which need attention – and the last thing I want to do is to trouble the doctors at this time!

The second is more important actually. Next week is Holy Week, the most important week of the year. Assuming this virus is fatal when it strikes (a big assumption I agree), then what happens after death? Christians believe that we have the answer. Now all that is put on hold and we just have to keep our fingers crossed and look, as the Muslims put it, for the mercy and compassion of God.

Taking the sacrament over the Easter Triduum is very reassuring. Not this year though.

Democracy has been suspended. But unlike last time when it was prorogued after the longest parliamentary session since the Civil War, and over the conference period, the Left will not complain. Why ? Because they have all the powers they want.

I am seeking reassurances today that Parliament will b e allowed back after the recess as planned.

No, it should be permanent, forcing MPs from distant constituencies to turn up in person in Parliament to speak and vote is absurd, the amount of time they waste travelling would be better used in the constituencies – there is absolutely no need for them to be physically there the whole time. Look at the stupid way you hold votes in Parliament, walking through a lobby, carrying in the sick from hospital sometimes, that could easily be replaced with secure on-line voting. Why not ?

Exactly – for example look at all the Scottish MPs coming down to Westminster at great expense to the taxpayer to vote on education, health, policing etc. etc. even though they are devolved matters and do not affect their constituents in Scotland. Better they stay north of the border and concentrate on their own business and what does affect their constituents.

It is my belief that Boris Johnson’s actions over the last month as set the foundations for a Socialist Labour victory at the next general election. His acceptance of an unreformed and interventionist socialist State that panders and protects Labour and the union vested interest will in time encourage voters to look to the political State rather than themselves at all times. That emotional re-attachment to the State spells disaster for the Tories.

When does this Tory government impose accountability on all State players? The BBC. The NHS. The Police. The judiciary. The CPS. All bend leftwards.

Every leftward step of the State means higher taxes and less freedoms

Yes, vote Tory get New Labour and a huge dose of Statism, PC and identity politics fascism and more immersion in a culture that demands adherence, compliance and silence

In Parliament last week, Steve Baker made reference to a ‘dystopian society’, it’s arrived. Hand clapping seals is a visible sign of group coercion.

Again I ask, Why can’t extensive use be made of video conferencing to do normal work by government and parliament? There are ways to make it fully effective as a means of discussion, and normal parliamentary business could be conducted. There are even ways to take a count.
If Parliament is to evolve, then accountability needs to be transparent – With that in mind, and video conferencing used, there is no reason not to have these discussions etc seen by the public – who might also be able to give a response as to how much they agreed with decisions made.
Out of adversity comes innovation – we can but hope.

A time of crisis is not the time that Parliament should be in recess. On the contrary, it is a time when it is more important than ever that elected representatives work and speak in a recorded and official way.

A quetion or statement made by an MP in Parliament is more important than the exact same question or statement made in a TV or radio studio.

I have 2 major worries in this crisis: the increase in police powers and the tendency for powers to be abused, and the fact that Parliament is not sitting when they should be monitoring and assessing the actions of the government.

The role of parliament is to exhibit the main effect of the virus which is stupidity and they are doing it very well. Amongst all the hyped up fear mongering is one statistic that shows just how exaggerted the death rate really is. We are currently 3200 below the five year average of deaths at this time of year. Let that sink in. We have shut the economy and removed basic rights for a scam. Many, many deaths are being attributed to the virus without autopsies and with little evidence. Constant press stories hyping up the dangers have made people fall for this charade. The lack of any critical thinking by MP’s have turned this country into a police state with an economy in slow motion collapse. Parliament has failed the people yet again.
Most web sites will censor this comment, let’s see if you do too.

In 2017/18 there were 46,030 excess winter deaths in England alone.
16,130 of these were due to respiratory causes.
The majority were over 74.
Can anyone remember the lockdown?
So, what’s the difference? I believe it’s no vaccine. Medical staff and the vulnerable normally get the flu jab.
The non-vaccine process should have been to shield all vulnerable people and ensure top protection for medical staff.
The government should also ensure better information is broadcast. Unlike your wailing trolls and the biased media I understand that herd immunity is the natural way. Do they think we should test and inoculate 70 million people every year?
p.s. the modellers should now be considered as frauds.

Hospitals in areas of the UK are certainly noticing the increase in respiratory illnesses. This is serious enough. But is cure worse than disease and I fear that we are about to be preyed upon by those watching how we react to the situation.

Lord Hailsham warned back in the seventies that Britain was in danger of sinking into an ‘elective dictatorship’ because of the vulnerability of its unwritten constitution to a left wing government. Now he would be foaming at the mouth witnessing the antics of a right wing government.

Our Punch and Judy parliament is of little use at the best of times other than as an expensive debating club; currently “furloughed” on full pay and expenses. Holding Downing Street executive to account is, in reality, done by the main stream print media.

Well, you can hardly call John Redwood ‘furloughed’, he reads us all bleating on day after day as one of our only outlets for the pressure many of us feel under, he is dealing as well with his constituents letters and concerns.

His calm measured postings each day are welcome and reassuring that at least one MP is listening. I wish him well and I wish the UK parliament were more technically savvy in order to allow virtual group meetings, giving the speaker the power over who can speak for their allotted time (without interruptions) with questions at the end from fellow MPs selected by the speaker – it might actually make a nice change.

If this goes on long term perhaps they will have to find a larger hall to meet in with properly spaced out desks and alloted times to walk in and out of the meeting room. There may even come a time when the Houses of Parliament are a visitors museum and a proper chamber with glass partitions is created or home/constituency based pods.

I am terrified that you can’t go to Parliament.
We lost democracy for a while during the Brexit debacle.
It is becoming too much of a habit.
I thought video linking/ conferring ( or whatever it is called) was all the rage!

Also…re the plane situation. If this crisis is bad enough to allow the economy to sink…how come people are “brought home”? In extremis, horrible though it is, people DO get stuck abroad. Since when did the govt care about that?

Yes, really this situation was quite apparent 2-3 weeks ago, when there were flights back. Why are we doing this? Presumably people were determined to finish their holidays? Or are they on a work mission, in which case why do they need to return?

Also wondered where on Earth all these police have come from??
Thought they were under resourced.
Motorbikes, cars..not seen any on foot yet!
Not seen so many FOR YEARS!
Are they back to catching criminals?

In the case of my village, we are told that it was the Bishop who ordered them closed. When all this started we were told that it was OK for an individual to enter for private prayer but that soon got changed to closed to the public.

Given that different countries around the World have differing standards about Covid 19 control measures
Are all of the passengers who are returning, or being repatriated to the UK being advised that they must go into 14 days proper isolation JR.

Nope.
I may be wrong but allegedly they just hop off plane, onto public transport having been told to “self isolate” ( incarcerate) themselves at home.
Oh and to sneeze into elbow if caught short on an overcrowded bus etc.

Except for Prime Ministers question time the benches in the House of Commons are mostly empty. Perhaps it is not unreasonable to suggest that MP’s sit 2 meters apart and that there is a limited amount of ministers allowed to go into debates at any one time, thereby keeping the numbers down to fit the 2 meter criteria.This could work on a rotation system.

Derbyshire police have demonstrated what a police state would look like.
Too busy harassing the little people of British ethnicity whilst turning a blind eye to our more culturally enlightened brethren.
We are a relatively passive race but if the government thinks it can confine us to barracks for 3 months or more then be prepared for civil disobedience on a grand scale.

Derbyshire Police have been disgraceful. But they have been enabled by incompetent government. Priti Patel is in charge of the police. It is little wonder that 7 days into this a police state seems a very real prospect.

No one told the Police to dye a lake black or to threaten a shopkeeper with charges for paintylines on the pavement outside his shop to help customers keep apart.
Or to threaten people with fines for buying Easter eggs.

And if you (and others) were given chloroquine today and a year down the line discovered it had some permanent and very nasty side effects, wouldn’t you be jumping up and down, instituting legal proceedings etc, because insufficient trialling had been done?

I have to say, my MP appears to have been altogether absent during the proceedings.

Here’s another issue to raise: the banks are apparently not offering the government loans to small businesses, instead offering their own loans. I had experienced this, and heard similar from the online SME forums, but then saw it again in the paper this morning. If it is this widespread a problem, the UK banking industry may require a much tighter hand in the future, given that they are already flouting the government guidance on cryptocurrency, and are now activiely blocking support for small firms.

I agree with comments regarding loans from Banks for small businesses, after much digging on our company’s bank website it appears to say that applications for the Government backed loans can only be applied for if the critiera for the Banks own loans (with onerous charges and hefty personal guarantees) are not met. This is not what was announced at the Government press conferences.

“the banks are apparently not offering the government loans to small businesses, instead offering their own loans.”

Yes there’s a lot of shysters exploiting grey areas left by an incompetent government. Including Company bosses who’s pay is linked to output…..and who should be closing the company but won’t, because they don’t want a basic pay packet like the rest of us.

Other things are also changing. I went to my doctor’s surgery this morning for a routine blood test (which I was also told could be done in the car park!). As I went in a male patient, obviously in some pain, left and a female couple also left as I was waiting. Otherwise there seemed to be few if any other patients. As a member of staff said to me, it’s amazing what can be done by telephone consultations, albeit perhaps not as comprehensively as face-to-face ones. I wonder whether there will be a longer-term change in the method of at least initial consultations when this C-virus thing is over?

Actually John when you say you speak for your constituents the probability is that most outside your Wokingham boundaries will experience similar problems which need highlighting , but as the PM and others have recently experienced you risk too much being in close contact.

I am aware that ( as I have worked in the NHS since 1968) the rules for eliminating bacterial and viral transmission have slackened. This many be due to reliance on vaccines and medication such as antivirals, antibiotics and antiseptics. I was always taught and it seems reasonable to accept the fact , that these pathogens do not discriminate about where to land, host and infect. Of course infection and proliferation of pathogens is a matter of ambience and mutation to thrive in a specific area. This is why for example in theatre work we scrub up to the elbows , we wear gowns , we wear masks , gloves and a cover for hair and these are changed at every separate operation having previously been sterilised at high temperatures. The worn protective clothes are then put into laundry waste bags to be burned very carefully .Staff should wear indoor and out door clothing and in the more up to date places showering available to all staff.

The truth is natural selection is finding a way to rid us . Complacency and lack of care in the human race has not made us appreciate what we have and how to take care of the world we live in and our place in it.

Taking these things into consideration and having the awareness of what covid-19 can do, I suggest that the old fashioned rules of hygiene and transmission should be spoken about and simple cross infection rules applied. I have seen staff with hair dangling into food stuffs , computers and other places which the public share. I have seen cigarettes being thrown into public places from cars, I have seen males spitting on the floor and many other cross infection potential hazards which some may not even realise spreads infection . It is simply not just about touching. Pathogens live on different surfaces for different amounts of time . Alarmingly when plastic aprons are used, I have read , covid -19 can harbour and live for 3 days ,therefore it is imperative that the aprons are only used once and then thrown away in an appropriate place for burning. This means a lot of aprons following contact.

I see the ‘massaging’ of Coronavirus death stats is beginning already and excuses like ‘warm weather will kill the virus’. To justify the outrageous clampdown and loss if liberty and finances inflicted on the U.K., several hundred thousand deaths exclusively caused by this virus must be clocked up. I think the gap between reality (my early prediction published on this site was under 5,000 seem way too high now) and the justified number is too big to massage.
Newspaper pictures of 2 policemen, discovering their inner NAZI, fining a man in Scotland and standing closer than 2 m to both him and each other have annoyed the hell out of me. It’s nobody’s business where we walk so long as we remain ‘socially distanced’.

So my conclusion is that MPs dealing with these and many other issues is even more important now we have a Sovereign Parliament. It must never be impossible for MPs to do their job of holding the executive to account.

The real shame is that the new Speaker has done nothing to dispel the impression that he’s no more than Boris Johnson’s poodle. He should be the one taking steps to ensure that the Members of Parliament continue to have the opportunity to hold Ministers to account for their actions through these critical days, but I haven’t seen any evidence of creative or innovative thought from him or his team about how to do that under these unusual circumstances. It’s hard to resist drawing the conclusion that they’re nothing more than the Prime Minister’s chamber lackeys.

Stress isn’t working for the NHS with a guaranteed salary
Stress is being told that your place of work has closed down
Stress is going to work knowing that that company hasn’t any new orders and you could be furlough or its about to close

The lack of parliamentary questions may be making the government take very silly decisions. The daftest, just reported is that anyone going out on an essential journey should take public transport instead of their car. The car will be the least likely form of transport to cause infection buses, trains and taxis are the best way to spread it, with airborne droplets and surfaces covered in the virus. Are these highly paid civil servants really that daft?
Perhaps it’s just an early application of latest policy, sneaked out last week, that we will all have to take public transport in the future and only a few cars will be allowed. In my case, my commute by train takes over twice as long. Vote Conservative get Green. It’s s shame for the 95% that don’t.

As of today (31/03) there is no such recommendation by the Government nor in the law. People have simply been asked to go shopping only once a week, if at all possible. The limitations are already quite drastic without having fake news disseminated by uninformed people, people who cannot find or cannot bother to find the proper information.

Sounds like Agenda 2030 of the UN. Very much worth a read. Alarming policies. It fits in perfectly with the One World Government agenda which the global political cabal have been systematically implementing with frightening speed and with little resistance.

The imposition of these draconian powers by this government, with no sunset clause, fits their agenda perfectly.

I just cannot believe that so called Conservatives have not only presided over, but enabled, the radical changes in our society that have been taking place in its ever leftward direction. Gorbachev’s observations about how he could not understand why Europe was so intent on building a new Soviet Union in Europe, the EU, are chilling, but absolutely true.

The far Left seems to have infiltrated key parts of our society, including education, the civil service and the MSM, but we have been complacent and lazy in challenging the erosion of our society. The fault is ours. Will we wake up in time? We need a true Conservative leader for that to happen. Boris is not that person, in my view.

Parliament is now neutered and irrelevant. We are now ruled, not governed, and it is by executive fiat. Even if, as I suspect, normalcy is restored in due course and the whole embarrassing saga is officially forgotten, the damage will have been done. Some of us will be preparing for the next time.

I am born with my liberties. The onus is not on me to justify these liberties. The onus is on you to justify why they should be taken away. You have categorically failed to do so. Some of us who are still free and can think for ourselves can see this “crisis” is, at best, hysteria, and possibly something worse and quite sinister. This will not be forgotten.

“our Parliament must not be manipulated by those with an ulterior agenda.”

Rose, it went beyond that a long time ago.

Consequently there is always a hidden agenda in everything the government does, labour and conservatives alike, they always turn a situation to their advantage.

My guess is this time it will be remoteness for the purpose of even less accountability, and restrictions to our liberty becoming permanent.

If they really did have our interests foremost like they make out, they’d have slammed the borders tightly shut and closed the airports pronto the minute this virus outbreak was known of. That way there would be fewer deaths and an infection rate much more nearer manageable. This isn’t rocket science.

But no, they have so-called ‘experts’ to do their bidding to the public’s face, and of course the secretive COBRA where they decide what we should be told because they think they know best.

I wouldn’t trust them as far as I could throw them, they’re an absolute bunch of stinkers the whole lot of ’em.

As I understand it, the Home Secretary wanted to stop flights but the Foreign Secretary prevailed with his concern about hundreds of thousands of tourists needing to come back. They haven’t thanked him though and in their aggressive entitlement some have been demanding private jets courtesy of HMG to get them back. People didn’t do that in 1939.

What a pile of …. The Home Secretary had asked without any concern for the thousands of British people wanting to come back to the UK. Fortunately the Foreign Secretary prevailed. And where did you get this ‘piece of news’ that people were demanding private jets? Source, please. And BTW how can you know that people didn’t do that in 1939?
And if it were true (which I very much doubt) and have a source to prove it, was it worse that the Masked Avenger who today requests Sir John to repeal the coronavirus bill.

how very sad Steve.
I’ve been retired quite a few years, doing a very active volunteering varied job. I miss it terribly and my general physical strength is going downhill as a result. Mentally I stay philosophical but watch the gradual destruction of our economy for a quite difficult reason. Us old ones often have underlying health issues and put the grim reaper to the back of our minds. We have witnessed close ones, and good friends go out of our lives, knowing it can be our turn quite unexpectedly. This virus or rather the media portrayal has the population panicked.

I really can’t believe, that someone who claims to be a mathematician would implicitly admit to being unable to grasp the simple arithmetic relating to seats in Parliament, and what that means for votes there.

Well you say that John, I am disappointed with the quality of reviews of the issues by MP’s available for all to see in their tweets, interviews, etc, and indeed the quality of reviews of the issues by the press.
It really does look like this whole thing is bringing out the best in some and highlighting the worst is others.
I am almost throwing up at the sick inducing hype over the NHS in all of this, a failing institution that has long been due a reality check and bringing up to date with the systems in the best of the rest of the world. Dom may have neutralised the Labour attack using the NHS as a rallying cry, but this has been done without any of the necessary reality checks needed to improve healthcare in this country.
I am upset that money has just been thrown at local councils to “help the community” when the reality is, they mostly are clueless how to do that, and much of that money is being wasted.
Upset that DE&S one of the most inefficient poor-quality parts of the MOD and public sector has been flooded with money and given ample ways of hiding their long-term failures, so they will be able to avoid necessary improvements for decades to come.
Cheesed off that large parts of the public sector have just stopped work completely, not even trying to work from home. Look at the financial ombudsman service, almost completely shut, all on full pay no doubt.
We have the Chancellor and his advisors who have socialised the losses of the big consultancies who can now run massive benches (of people without assignments) and keep them on the headcount subsidised with 80% contribution from the tax payer (regardless of the savings/wealth of the individual workers), when they were already running tax avoidance measures like moving profits to tax havens so minimal corporate taxes payable here, masses of imported workers getting first year in the country free of national insurance, and so much more. Pumped money into the long term unemployed, and done nothing to improve their incentives to work, or incentives to move geographically for work.
And a Chancellor who has actively decided to slag off freelancers and accuse them of not paying enough tax. Clearly not understanding that many cycle in and out of different types of legal working framework, umbrella companies, personal service limited, sole trader, occasional “perm” role, and gaps. Seemingly not understanding that in many cases, such as umbrellas inside IR35 for public sector gigs, they are actively forced to pay for work expenses like travel, hotels, etc out of taxed money making them the most taxed workers in the workforce. And offering no help whatsoever to large %’s of the workforce, cos they don’t have mates in high places, like the consultancies do, to argue their case, or slip in measures under smokescreens. Which will force many into a new underclass, and a whole new set of problems for society, the most entrepreneurial and flexible parts of the workforce shafted while the cosy lazy parts have been boosted, its not going to be good, our whole ability to generate wealth as a society is going to take a massive kicking.
Then we have the way the centre is managing the big picture, centralising way too much, when decentralising medical treatment would do a lot to reduce cross infection. Hiding the computer model being worked on from other teams, and other individuals, who could and should be able to come up with alternate improvements etc. Playing “knowledge is power” games at a time like this is silly.
My overwhelming feeling is of a top-heavy society that simply doesn’t understand how it pays its way in the world, and how it actually hangs together normally, actively trying to destroy the most productive parts of that society and flinging money around like confetti at the most problematic. The political/public sector/journalistic classes are an embarrassment.
As for the police, and the enthusiasm of many of their members to wield new powers to persecute ordinary people, while leaving the real hardened criminals alone, is revealing. The politically correct way they have been recruited and run for decades is showing now in how poor quality they are. They could and should have taken the opportunity to reassign resources to tackle some of the real hard-core hardened criminals, but instead they are doing Doris the nurse for being 5 mph over an arbitrary speed limit on her way to the hospital.
Makes me embarrassed to be a Brit the whole thing.
The biggest observation is how little the real way this country and society works is talked about and understood by the elite, they simply have no clue how the most complex projects get delivered, how the money is generated, none at all.

I am also embarrassed to be a Brit, but I am also scared to be a Brit in (what was) my country.

The key piece of information on whether the UK can regain transparency will not be so much the hidden model, but whether when prevalence rates are measured they are honestly released with the day and cohorts. Today Dr Jenny Harries indicated measurements were being made, with these we can easily estimate the lives that will be lost whilst within NHS capacity and thus also those if above NHS capacity. The excess can be compared with what the expected effect of closing the economy is. With estimates of 1000 or 2000 infected for each death and about 1/8th of hospitalised dying then closing the economy looks a bad decision (ignoring the police state). If it turns out there is much less than a few percent background prevalence then it may well have been necessary (though approach needn’t have been so heavy handed). The question will be when will the Govt have the numbers, and if/when will the public.

In terms of models I don’t think the Govt has even indicated what economic (and welfare) model has been used in conjunction with the epidemic model to inform the decision.

The effects of this shutdown are going to be catastrophic, but Boris and his team do not seem to have thought it out. Unforgiveable.

You only have to look at a very small area to see the network of businesses and small enterprises and the intricacies of how they relate to and depend on other people/businesses. The pleas for help (We cannot last like this till June…) are apparently falling on “cloth ears”, who seem to lack any common sense, and who lack a fundamental understanding of how local businesses and communities operate. It is deadly serious, Sir John, and I don’t think Boris et al have a clue. They seem utterly incompetent.

Also worth noting, that people are encouraged to take exercise in their own gardens e.g. doing gardening. what is the next thing to happen? They cancel the brown bin wheelie bin collection. The garden centres are closed, and the growers and nurseries are going to take a huge hit. So much for the govt encouraging us to garden.

Another spin off from all of this is general wellbeing. Has the govt thought through all the repercussions of the media hype, the govt draconian measures, the over zealous police actions, the curtailing or banning of activities that promote good health and well being? No, they haven’t, and although these things might not be at the top of the list in terms of importance, they are still part of the whole picture, which the government seems unable to comprehend.

The silliest policy is that garden centres are allowed to sell food such as vegetables but the police will not allow them to sell plants. The spacing in garden centres was already beyond six feet and it would be easy to maintain distance between customers.

Indeed it’s the obvious thing to do, play the banks at their own game.

Rather than hand everything over to the banks, tally up and close the doors. The assets are still there and can be bought back later by shareholders from the banks and finance companies at a fraction of the outstanding liabilities. Or not – it’s the banks’ choice. Either way, those premises and assets won’t sell or let themselves in the meantime.

The common sense solution has been discussed but, after that we should have instigated testing on all primary people (eg Nurses, doctors, police) and then to the wider general public starting with the most at risk.

Once we had an idea of the extent and the ‘hot spots’ we could have isolated them and left most of the country alone.

The government has panicked. It has allowed itself to be frightened by so called experts and an MSM eager to peddle and milk this story. They will not suffer.

The drastic measures to prevent the spread of Coronavirus- given that up to 500,000 people could die in Britain if it is allowed to spread unchecked- are measured and proportionate to preserve life. They will likely be needed to be extended until the autumn to guard against a possible Encore should a second wave of this pandemic hit.

All of that mounts up to one huge Economic hit. The Government cannot borrow £1 Trillion to bail out the entire Economy- Fitch has already downgraded Britain’s credit-rating last week and if Britain is downgraded to one notch above junk by all three international Credit Ratings’ Agencies the Interest to pay just servicing the new National Debt will increase to £200 billion. That would require some very nasty Austerity to get under control!

The Bank of England can neither print that sort of money to keep the Economy afloat when the supply-side takes a big hit during the Lock-down (workers staying at home, etc.) without provoking 10%-plus Inflation. The Bank of England could probably print up to £500 billion- using it to buy up commodity-backed securities to back up Sterling and that will feed into the wider Economy to prevent a very deep Recession- but when the Supply/ Manufacture of goods is reduced printing more money will just cause massive Inflation.

Thus beyond the measures announced already the Government will have to put up taxes, probably on Wealth, in order to help households and businesses- and invest in Infrastructure (as promised in the Conservative Manifesto). Foreign Aid will likely have to be cut to help pay for all the borrowing and worsening fiscal outlook caused by Recession.

Given the likely Fiscal and Monetary restraints by autumn, one would welcome your thoughts, Sir on how to raise ££100 billions needed to invest in roads, rail, new homes and broadband across Britain whilst cutting those taxes that hold Britain back without a) Causing Inflation/Borrowing to get out of hand or b) Provoking such Electoral Fury that Boris Johnson is guaranteed to be a one-term Prime Minister? Perhaps you could then share these policy ideas with Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak.

Conservatives dont like “Wealth Taxes on the Rentable Value of Property”, but they do less harm economically than other taxes, for the population as a whole such measures would be less likely to provoke electoral fury than further Cuts or other Tax Rises. Sure, some Conservative Voters in the Shires will squeal, some might vote “Liberal Democrat” in protest, but that’s better than five million Northern and Midland voters going back to Labour in protest at Benefit Cuts or VAT being raised. These are the choices facing the Government when all this is over.

Mass Privatisations would also be unpopular, though some might be unavoidable to raise monies to keep the economy afloat. The Rail Infrastructure (tracks, signalling, etc) is still State-owned -that might have to be sold to raise ££ billions needed.

When this is all over, there needs to be a serious plan to put in place a British Sovereign Wealth Fund- so if ever such a catastrophe should befall the UK Economy again there are reserves to call upon: We need to fix the roof when the Sun comes out again!

All the best for you and your family at this time.

Ian Pennell

Reply I disagree and think it imperative not to hike taxes during the recovery phase

Your numbers in paragraph 1 correspond to 1 in 100 who are infected dying and an R0 of just over 3. This could justify the scale of supply side shock, if that were the number of lives saved. However the Chief Scientific Adviser has suggested perhaps 1000 cases for each death, whilst Imperial’s guestimates of a few % of the population already infected reduces the mortality estimate further. Under these numbers it is difficult to justify the supply side shock. It might be the case that under demand side recessions / depressions that it is possible for mortality to actually decrease, but supply side shocks (e.g. think of oil in the 70s) can lead to a drop of growth for decades. Such growth is what correlates to increase in life expectancy, lose a year of potential gain in life expectancy across the population is roughly equivalent to 800,000 lives. (Think of the new normal growth in the past decade and the slowing of increases in life expectancy). The risk of the supply side shock is quite reasonable if 500,000 lives are to be saved, but if the mortality rate is an order of magnitude lower it is much less clear. Once ‘we’ have (if ‘we’ had) prevalence rates it will be more clear.

No not yet because:- if the NHS is overwhelmed many people who could have survived will not (this for want of ventilators and other medical care). Underlying condition might be quite minor slightly elevated blood pressure for example.

We need to get the NHS up to a level where it can cope (and then we can relax the controls a slowly). Unless you want perhaps 15,000+ or so avoidable deaths on top of the circa 20,000 that we are likely to get anyway. I certainly do not want any of my family or indeed anyone else to die for want a ventilators that could easily have been made for about £2,000 a piece in the 2 plus months notice we have had – had proper pandemic planning been done.

We have been told we are not at capacity for ventilators yet and that 90% of patients put on them die. Only 10% survive. Shortage of ventilators is not the major problem it has been made out to be. Old age and illness are.

The Chinese doctors told us that patients with this virus have to be put on ventilators early for them to work. If doctors wait until patients obviously need them then it’s too late and there is little or no point.
They can only be aggressive in using them if they have enough to go round.

Do you know how high the risk of death is from the very fact of being on a ventilator in the first place? Do you know that the older you are, especially with the likely conditions you will have in old age, the more likely you are to die BECAUSE you are on a ventilator and therefore run the serious risk of contracting pneumonia?

Try looking up the relevant scientific papers on ventilator risks before you write yet another ignorant rant about how little they may cost in terms of £££s.

I do not accept that I am wrong at all on this. The economy will recover very well indeed once it is all over and especially once we have a vaccine. Once the NHS has capacity to cope we can slowly relax restrictions.

Apologies Sir John, but you are my go to politician. Would you be amenable to a Points or Thoughts to consider post re the current situation? Things that may have been overlooked etc. Such as 1. The truckers delivering vital supplies have lost nearly all facilities such as bathrooms/places to stay and hot meals – solutions? 2. The charitable air ambulances/RNLI also need PPE, should they buy their own?

Sir John, the central issue you need to raise with Government, and urgently, has been provided by today’s BrexitFacts4EU website (no, not the piece by you on the Beeb, I’m afraid):https://facts4eu.org/news
Deaths per week in England and Wales are not any higher on average than they were for any of the previous 5 years.
What is the factual basis for this lockdown and the trashing of our, and the world’s, economies?
Isn’t it time they looked again at the ‘scientific models’ and ‘expert’ advice they so uncritically accepted?
What on earth is going on?

Some call it centralisation. Some call it Reichstag politics. Labour call it a once in a lifetime political opportunity to promote collectivism, socialist compliance and social group coercion using emotion and psychological warfare

The unprincipled Tories haven’t a clue about how to react except spend like a lunatic which is what happens when you’ve sacrificed all your values and principles and are now kneeling at the altar of Labour’s political construct

We’ll pay a heavy price for a Tory party that’s a copyright abuse of what they once were

I know Thatcher wouldn’t have responded in a manner that may deliver Marxist Labour the next GE

Some call it centralisation. Some call it Reichstag politics. Labour call it a once in a lifetime political opportunity to promote collectivism, socialist compliance and social group coercion using emotion and psychological warfare

>
Yes, it wasn’t hard to co-opt the stupid Labour Party into tyranny was it. Just goes to show they are not fit for their positions, any of them.

Stanford professors of medicine, Dr. Eran Bendavid and Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, believe that the lethality of Covid19 is overestimated by several orders of magnitude and is probably even in Italy only at 0.01% to 0.06% (based on the fully tested Italian community of Vo) and thus below that of influenza. https://www.theblaze.com/news/stanford_coronavirus_too_high_death
Medical researcher Philip Duvall:
“During the first six weeks of this year I was living in Beijing, and there was no ban on informal gatherings and no social distancing of ‘two metres’. When I left Beijing three weeks ago, while I was still quarantined at the university, locals were coming and going to their offices in groups. In other words, our measures are significantly stricter than China’s”.
Duvall remains bewildered by the Establishment reaction to COVID19 beyond Asia.

No-one doubts the sincerity of the Government effort to do the very best they can, but the structure appears to be getting disjointed and a bit slipshod especially when it comes to logistics around tests, personal protection equipment and ventilators.

As another commentator on this site recommends… set up a Programme Management Office and lets get proper structure and dependencies/logistics, risks and mitigations resolved as a matter of urgency.

Judging by the excellent capability of our military to get new hospital facilities up and running in literally days, I would heartily recommend the Government appoint a Forces led PMO with workstream Owners/Leads from various NHS agencies/companies involved as appropriate.

With such a focussed PMO we should see the uprated testing regime up and running nationally, like the Germans/Koreans, also all the extra ventilators and PPE replenishment where they are needed. Time is of the essence!

HMG would then be clear to perform the Steering Group function with CMO/NHS Directors and continue with public daily communications.

I was wondering about this Nightingale Hospital, how will the patients use the toilet? How long do the NHS expect patients to be in a Pod? Will they all be on just liquids and a catheter? Will they be mixing men and women together?

Parliament missed a recent opportunity to limit the powers of the Executive. The recent emergency legislation gives the Government draconian powers for two years. If parliament had insisted on the insertion of a sunset clause, so that the powers lapsed after six months, Government would pay more attention to the wishes of the House.

Yorkshire and Humberside population 5,480,000
Yorkshire and Humberside deaths………………….90

We, or rather the USA, who are after us in The Curve have said that the next two weeks are going to be horrific in terms of numbers who will die in the USA

So just a few more days…in fact less than a few days in the UK to meet the Government’s plague target and so justify in the least degree in ruining this country in every possible way.
Of course those 90 dead include flu and sepsis victims and “community” guessed at reasons for death victims and include deaths by all other causes , heart attack, smoking, VD, sunburn etc etc as pre-existing conditions.
Things are looking terminally ill for the Government. It has just a couple of days left of even tiny credibility. Say by Saturday this week.

By the end of the week there’s going to be a lot money people unemployed

About John Redwood

John Redwood won a free place at Kent College, Canterbury, and graduated from Magdalen College Oxford. He is a Distinguished fellow of All Souls, Oxford. A businessman by background, he has set up an investment management business, was both executive and non executive chairman of a quoted industrial PLC, and chaired a manufacturing company with factories in Birmingham, Chicago, India and China. He is the MP for Wokingham, first elected in 1987.